


Arachne's Son

by Tiger_Eye7429



Series: Self Indulgent Pjo/Sanders Sides fic [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Spider Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29548905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiger_Eye7429/pseuds/Tiger_Eye7429
Summary: People always ask how it was possible to be Arachne's son, or how Arachne was able to bring him to life. Always something along those lines. What most people don't remember to ask was what it's like.Most people don't remember to ask why he ran.
Series: Self Indulgent Pjo/Sanders Sides fic [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2166612
Kudos: 15





	Arachne's Son

People always ask how he was able to be Arachne’s son, or how Arachne was able to bring him to life; they always asked how it was _possible_ to be Arachne’s son. What most people don’t remember asking what it was like. 

People don’t remember to ask why he ran. 

If he really thought about it, he could remember what it was like before he was alive. Remember when he had two eyes that couldn’t see. Two ears that couldn’t hear. Two hands that couldn’t feel, gripping a weapon that he knew he could use but couldn’t remember the feel or shape of.

He remembered when he was just… there. He existed. 

He remembered when he was silk in a way that he was supposed to be. Spider silk. Dyed and painstakingly crafted over hours upon hours upon hours. 

He remembered when he was loved so much he was alive, in a way he could never be. He remembered when he was alive in a way he wasn’t. 

And then, a blessing, and he was- _breathing_. With four eyes that could see and hands that could feel and ears that could hear, made of silk in a way he shouldn’t. 

He remembered when he was _only_ a tapestry. 

He doesn’t like remembering. The memories force him to look within himself, to feel what he still was. 

He is Arachne’s son. 

And he is a tapestry. 

And it showed, in the way that when Virgil looked within himself, he could feel it. He can feel the silk hanging from a wall, how it brushes against the cold rock. 

He wonders if that’s why he’s always cold- because it always feels like he’s brushing against the coldest stone. He wonders if that’s why it can get a little hard for him to see in the light- because he’s too used to being locked up in the dark. 

He wonders if the little shivers he feels for no reason are that his siblings are climbing up the thing, skittering up and down the woven threads, making him feel too uneasy all the time.

He wonders if that’s why he misses his mom. Because he can feel the way she treats it. Feel the way she loves it. Feel the way she’s protecting it more than she’s protecting her own body, even if he left. 

He has a few mixed feelings on that. He can’t stay alive without his mom’s love- it’s _l_ _iterally_ the thing keeping him alive. Until someone steals his tapestry and starts loving it more than her, he’s staying alive through a monster’s- a _mother’s_ love. 

Even if she didn’t treat her the best. Enough for all of his siblings to convince him to run. Run away when he barely knew the meaning of the word. Run away when she loved him. 

Run away when he loves her. 

Arachne wasn’t a bad person, not in her heart. She was- sad. And angry. So angry, all the time. She didn’t ask to be a spider; she didn’t ask to be _immortal_. Quite the opposite, actually.

The gods don’t realize humans aren’t meant to be immortal. Arachne hadn’t been human for a while, but that was what she was _meant_ to be. At her core, she was meant to be human. 

So she wasn’t built for immortality. When you turn into a god, that changes the mind _and_ the body. When you are cursed, most often, it’s just the body. Arachne had been given a few spidery instincts in her mind, at best, honestly. Her mind did not survive the test of time, and it showed in the ways she acted. It showed in the way _all_ of the cursed monsters acted. In the way that Medusa laughed. In the way that Lamia snarled. In the way that thousands of monsters screamed and cried and laughed.

Arachne wasn’t a bad person. She didn’t mean to be. 

She was just- 

( _“Virgil if you don’t stop crying I swear to the Gods-“_ )

-tired.

It was easy to hurt a human when you haven't been one in so long. And Virgil had always been a problem to other people. 

However, the spiders never thought so. There were hundreds upon thousands within that cavern. And each and every single one loved him. They never thought he was- burdensome like Mom did. 

Never tried to hurt him like- 

They loved him, and they still do! They took care of him in a way Mom didn’t know how to. Food, water, stories, games, even. Praise when he made something out of his silk, or when he was able to climb to the highest ledge as they taught him. Everything a child needed, they gave him. They gave him everything. 

Including the idea to run. 

He loves the spiders, in a way that wasn’t as complicated and strange as the feelings he felt for Mom. It was real, and he felt it every time he talked with them. He felt it every time he _thought_ about it. 

(He felt it every time he felt a shiver down his spine as they skittered down the tapestry).

He trusted them, and listened to them, and learned from them. And in the end, that was why he ran. Not because Arachne was bad like everyone thought, but because the spiders were good.

…

..

.

The issue with being what he was, was the fact that he was basically an especially rare breed of Nymph or Naiad. It’s probably why they were so chill with him without being anywhere near attracted to him- they could relate to him. 

Another thing about being a rare breed of Nymph- only half the rules applied. Only the good ones, of course, like _immortality as long as the other part survives_ , as tapestries weren’t alive.

Well, he _was_ alive, but, the way a Dryad worked was that, as long as their tree lived, they would live. The thing about that is that the tree would _eventually_ die. It’s still a living thing. 

That doesn’t work with a piece of fabric. While he was alive as the fabric at first, at some point, with unseeing eyes and unhearing ears, that tapestry wasn’t alive anymore. 

So he didn’t get immortality, unfortunately. He lived about the same amount of time as a regular demigod. He didn’t get the ability to turn into that tapestry either, because it still existed (He was half convinced he would be able to turn into the tapestry if he went up to it, similar to a naiad with water, but he wasn’t planning on testing that theory anytime soon). 

The biggest one, though, was the fact that he doesn’t know what it looked like. Dryads knew what their trees looked like to the leaf. His mother never let him see it, and he can’t imagine it. 

Just what it was like to be in it. 

He did get a few drawbacks, though. 

He wasn’t fully made of… human. Or a spider. There was a solid amount of him he could tell was made out of silk. He and Janus had a bet going to see when Remus realized that his hair _was_ in fact silk dyed black and purple, and he had the same going with Remus to see if Janus would figure out that his eyes didn’t hold melanin, they held purple dye. It was… weird that Remus knew that his eyes held purple dye and not that his hair was made of silk, but Apollo kids tended to Know Things while being complete idiots. 

That didn’t matter much, though. What really mattered was if the tapestry was damaged. If the tapestry broke, he’d die, though it did not work the other way. If something even _mildly_ messes up the tapestry, he’d probably get _thoroughly_ fucked. 

And that Tapestry was in the hands of a person he wasn’t entirely sure he hated but was sure held at least a _little_ hate for him. 

Which was... Pretty messed up. At least, Emile and Remy thought so, when he told them about it. Janus and Remus actually wanted to go back and _get it_ , to make sure that he wouldn’t _die_ because a monster felt angry or betrayed or even _bored._ He had to remind them that he wouldn’t be alive without her love, so he’d be fine, but the idea of her holding _that_ much power over him- 

He didn’t like thinking about it.

No one remembered to ask why he ran. 

Good. He didn’t like to remember, either.


End file.
